Troubled and Abusive Relationships Forum - How to Stop Hurting & Trust Dishonest Husband?

Hi,

this is my first post. I want to apologize ahead of time for dumping all of this on you in my first post, but i'm at the end of my rope and need to get this out to someone other than my best girlfriend.

My husband and I have been married for nine years and we have two children together. When we first met I told him that I am against pornagraphy because I feel that it is the objectification and exploitation of women. He, a senstive guy working on a phd in philosophy, agreed. He also knew that I was anti drugs

fast forward to one to two months into our marriage
shortly after getting married and moving into our new apartment I was cleaning out some closets. There was this utility closet on our apartment patio. I found one of my husband’s pieces of luggage in it. Innocently, I decided to clean it out. Imagine my surprise when I found body paints tucked into one of the pockets. That night when my husband came home I asked him where the body paints came from. He claimed that he had bought them as a surprise for me for the upcoming valentines day. I knew he was lying. I asked again. He lied again. I pretended to believe him and left the room.

A couple of weeks later it was valentines day.
My husband was still a grad student and working as a waiter part time. A new wife, pregnant with his child, I was very excited about valentines day. So I fixed the house up, got him a special card, made a candlelight dinner and a valentines cake. He came home from work late that night. He said it was because the restaurant was busy. He didn't have a card for me or anything. I was devastated. Then when we went to bed he made this big to-do about a surprise that he had for me. He blindfolded me until the surprise was ready. I laid in wait, suddenly I felt this cool wet brush on my pregnant belly. When I removed the blindfold, to my utter horror, he was painting me with the body paints!!!

I shot out of bed immediately. I demanded to know who those body paints belonged to or who they were from. My husband tried to act like a sad little puppy. Like he was hurt that I did not believe that they were something that he bought for me as a surprise. After a great deal of arguing he finally "admitted" that they were old body paints from that an ex girlfriend had given him. I felt then, and still feel, that he was lying. Had his ex given those body paints to him, wouldn't they have used them together – wouldn’t they have at least opened the package? Of course they would have. I believe that those body paints were for another woman or from another woman that he was havign an affair with.

Fast forward to six months into our marriage:
one day I went to get the mail and there was this letter from playboy telling my husband that his subscription was about to expire, and encouraging him to renew.

I confronted him. At first he tried to make up a bunch of lame excuses. Finally he admitted to me that he had a playboy subscription before we were married, and that he had been receiving it for the entire six months of our marriage. I was shocked. It seems that he had been intercepting the mail around the time that the magazine was scheduled to arrive so that I wouldn't know about it. Then he was looking at it when I was not home. I felt sick. I wondered who this man was - how my sensitive husband could be such a liar and manipulator to intercept our mail keep that secret from me for six months, all the while telling me that pornography was the objectification of women.

Fast forward to year five of our marriage[b]
my husband was always staying up late playing computer games. It made me feel very upset, alone and hurt. I would ask him to come to bed, and he would say "soon". When I got angry at him for staying up late he would get mad - say that he worked hard and had a right to play computer games. I asked him if he was looking at pornography. He said absolutely not, and that I should get off his case.

At that time I was a volunteer manager for a nonprofit. One day one of my volunteers was at my home office doing some work on my hard-drive. Suddenly I see this screen that had our entire computer history on it - there I learned that my husband had been sneaking pornography at every possible moment behind my back. This history went back for three years!!!

When my husband got home that night I asked him if he had been viewing pornography online. I wanted to give him the chance to tell the truth. His answer was "no". I asked again, "honey, please tell me the truth. I need to know. Please don't lie to me." again, he said, "no". I kept pressing him. He tried to act like a hurt puppy dog (always his first line of attack). I kept pressing, literally begging for the truth. Soon he began to almost mock me. He said that I was jealous and warped and imagining things. Finally, I said, "i'm going to ask you one last time. This is your opportunity to be honest with me. Have you been looking at pornography online?" he adamantly denied it and said that we didn’' have a good relationship if I couldn't trust him.

Finally I said, "look, I know that you have been looking at it online. I saw it in our records." he looked surprised for a brief moment, then he quickly regained his composure. He then said, "oh, yeah, that must be from that time you and I were playing around on the internet." I said, "no, it wasn't." he tried to insist that it was. I told him flatly, that I was 100% certain that he had been looking at pornography more than that. Then he "admitted" to looking at it a few times. It wasn’t until I told him that I had the history on our computer that he "admitted" to his three year history of sneaking porn behind my back. So, essentially he never admitted it. He just got caught. Just as he had gotten caught with the playboy and gotten caught with the body paints.

As I looked backed I was enraged. There were so many times that he had not completed his responsibilites because, unbeknowst to me at the time, he was looking at porn instead of doing his work. For example when we moved from new york to california I flew out two weeks ahead of time to california to find work and a place to live for our family (we had two kids). He was suppose to pack the house up so that when I went back to new york he and one of my son's could drive back to cali. When I arrived in new york (after flying a red-eye and getting no sleep), I found that the house was in shambles and not packed at all. I was so pissed. To which he got indignant and said that he was busy with his work as a grad student and taking care of our youngest son who I had left with him. So, with me having virtually no sleep, we packed and cleaned our house in about six hours because he hadn't done it during the two weeks while I was in california arranging our housing and looking for work. Looking back at the computer history I realize that the reason he hadn't got our packing done (and many other things) is because he was looking at porn.

After I found out about my husband's porn. And after he refused to tell me the truth, I threatened to leave him. Ultimately I stayed with him and we went through marriage counseling. After about two years I finally started to trust him a bit.

[b]fast forward to 8 years into our marriage and 2 years after I found out about the porn
my husband travels alot for his job. In the past he often turned his phone off - claiming that his phone just "does that" and that it is not intentional. While in marriage counseling the counselor said, "well, why don't you just lock it to on?" that excuse was gone and traveling became less painful for me until the miami incident. My husband went to miami and was scheduling to return home by noon on saturday. He called me at about 2pm on saturday to tell me that he had missed his plane.

I wanted to know exactly why he had missed his plane. He told me that he had slept in. I knew instantly that he had been up to no good, "why did you sleep in - were you out all night?". He admitted that he had been out drinking and dancing at a night club (my husband is not a drinker). He said that he, a female coworker, and a male doctor had been out dancing and drinking til 4am and that when he got to his hotel room he crashed.

I was very upset. Then it got worse. I figured out that he had left his watch in miami. He said that he took it off when he went to sleep and that he must have forgotten to put it on when he got back to the room because he was so tired. My husband never takes off his watch. In fact I have to plead with him to take it off at bedtime, and generally he doesn't agree to do so. Furthermore, why would my husband, who never takes off his watch, decide to take of his watch at 4am when he is dog tired? I'm certain that he was with another woman in miami. I have begged him to admit the truth, but to this day he insists that he is telling the truth.

Fast forward to this year
my best friend, unbeknowst to me or my husband, started dating this guy that works at my husbands company. We ran into them at a company party. After the guy met my husband and i, he said to my friend, "i didn't know that he was married." my friend said, "what?" the guy replied, "well I hear that it's all about john and jane (a 20 year old girl that works with my husband)". My friend kind of lost her cool and started drilling the guy. The guy instantly clammed up and claimed that he just meant that the girl has a crush on my hubby, and nothing more (my husband is above the guy in seniority).

When I asked my husband about the girl he claimed there was nothing to know about her.

Hang up calls
after my husband and I got married I began getting many many hang up calls and wrong numbers. Far more than I had ever gotten in my life (and I had lived on my own and moved around plenty prior to our marriage). Whenever I told my husband that I thought it was strange, he would say, "everybody gets hang up calls" every since my husband got a cell phone we no longer get all the hangup calls and wrong numbers.

I could go on, but I think that you get the picture.

Conclusion
i love my husband deeply. And everyone I know says that he acts as if he is "head over hills in love" with me. In many ways he dotes on me. We have gone to marriage counseling. He comes home every night. But, I still can't rid of this dreadful feeling that he still has not been honest with me. I feel that the fact that he has not told the truth about our past, is indicative of the fact that he is still not ready to be an honest, faithful husband.

He travels about 25% of the time. On top of that he has many days where he works late or goes to work early for business trainings and business dinners. Recently he began an mba program and will be away from home meeting with his study group as well as studying at night. He has not time for me.

I am beside myself with anxiety, lonliness and distrust. I feel that my husbands loves me and wants to be married to me. He wants to be a family man. But I also have this feeling that he uses his work and travel as an excuse and guise for extramarital affairs. I find it very had to trust him. Sometimes, after he's been traveling, he comes home to make love to me. Sometimes he comes home with "new moves". Sometimes he acts super lovey-dovey in bed and looks deep into my eyes and tries to be tender. Instead of enjoying it I feel sick to my stomach. I feel just awful, like I know in my heart that he is a lying cheat. But I keep making love to him so that he won't get upset.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to trust him. I'm afraid that if I don't trust him that our relationship will end - that he will leave me. I'm afraid that if I do trust him that he will abuse my trust and really cheat is butt off.

Even though he tries to be sweet to me, I feel so alone and anxious most of the time. I fantasize about cheating on him. I do so partly because I want to hurt him as much as I believe that he hurt me, and partly because I am lonely. However, I wouldn’t cheat on him because that would make me a bad person, bad wife, and bad mother.
I fantasize about leaving him. But I love him. He is that father of my children. My children adore their dad. Though lately my oldest son has been making comments that leads me to believe that he feels that his dad is gone to much, and not as attentive a husband to me as he could be. I am financially dependent on my husband. I started a business, but it does not gross enough to support my children and i. I feel trapped by love, financial need and my children’s needs.

Please help. Any suggestions or words of wisdom?